Laura Miller, Author at Greentarget

As private equity money flows into accounting firms of every size, leaders are naturally focusing on financial terms and operational integration—but often overlook a third factor that is every bit as crucial to get right: strategic communications.

This oversight carries real consequences. PE accounting deals are redefining identities, cultures, and client relationships, meaning a smart communications strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have. When communications are mishandled, even well-structured deals can unravel through internal discord, client defections, and damaged market reputation.

Consider the well-known case of Toys”R”Us, where poor stakeholder communication contributed to the retailer’s demise despite substantial PE investment. While accounting firms face different dynamics, the underlying principle remains: How you communicate change both internally and externally often matters as much as the change itself.

The High-Stakes Communication Challenge PE Investment Triggers

PE investment fundamentally alters a firm’s identity, operations, and relationships. These changes trigger immediate questions from every stakeholder group—questions that will be answered with or without your input.

This communications challenge is amplified in the world of accounting firms, which typically operate on relationship-driven business models built over decades. PE investment can feel like an existential shift to stakeholders who value the firm’s existing structure, culture, or independence. Without careful communication, negative perceptions can become reality.

The firms that thrive through a PE investment are those that proactively shape conversations about the investment rather than reactively responding to them.

To that end, your communications strategy must begin early in the PE process, ideally as soon as leadership reaches preliminary agreement with potential investors. By the time announcements go public, your narrative framework should already be in place and tested.

Get Ahead of Stakeholder Concerns With Distinct Strategies

Successful PE communications require tailored approaches for four distinct audience groups, each with specific concerns and information needs.

1. Internal Stakeholders: Addressing “What Does This Mean for Me?”

Internal audiences, from partners to administrative staff, immediately focus on personal survival. They want concrete answers: Will I lose my job? Do my benefits change? Who makes decisions now? How do my compensation and performance targets shift?

Beyond those immediate personal concerns, they worry about cultural transformation. Will the firm maintain its values and cultural character? How will daily operations change?

These and other questions require thoughtful communications that address both practical changes and organizational identity.

As with any communications strategy, one size doesn’t fit all. Your internal communications should segment audiences by role and seniority, recognizing that partners, managers, and staff need different information at different times.

Most critically, your strategy must account for the leak principle: assume everyone who learns about the investment will tell someone else—because they will.

2. External Stakeholders: Preserving Critical Business Relationships

Client relationships represent any accounting firm’s most valuable asset, making external communications particularly sensitive.

When clients hear about a PE investment deal, they will immediately want to know whether it will affect billing rates, service quality, or access to key personnel. Prospective clients may wonder whether the firm’s growth trajectory aligns with their needs. They may also question whether your firm will continue to live up to its existing reputation.

Recruiting is yet another critical consideration. Top talent may hesitate to join a PE-backed organization if they perceive reduced autonomy or cultural shifts. Conversely, PE investment can enhance recruiting by signaling growth opportunities and resource availability.

Your external communication strategy must address each stakeholder group’s concerns while positioning PE investment as a strategic advantage. This often means emphasizing continuity of service and relationships while highlighting enhanced capabilities and resources.

3. Media: Controlling Your Narrative

Media coverage shapes market perception across all other audiences, making proactive engagement essential. Financial publications focus on deal structures; trade outlets examine industry implications; and business media explores strategic rationales. Each angle influences how your stakeholders interpret the investment.

Proactive media engagement lets you frame your story before competitors, industry observers, or disgruntled insiders define it for you. This requires prepared messaging, designated spokespeople, and strategic announcement timing.

As you craft your strategy, keep in mind that your goal isn’t just positive coverage—it’s accurate coverage that reinforces your stakeholder communication objectives.

4. AI and Digital Discovery: Managing Your Digital Narrative

When someone searches for your firm’s name plus “private equity,” what story emerges from ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI summaries? This digital narrative increasingly shapes stakeholder perceptions, yet it rarely receives strategic attention.

Managing your AI-mediated reputation requires attention to information sources that feed these systems—Reddit discussions, Wikipedia profiles, and media outlets that AI tools frequently cite.

For example, if negative speculation about your deal dominates accounting subreddits, that narrative may surface in AI-generated responses about your firm. The new discovery landscape demands strategic thinking about your digital presence and information architecture.

Execution Essentials: Timing, Leaks, and Channel Strategy

Even the best-designed communications strategy fails without disciplined execution. Pay careful attention to the following elements as you bridge the gap from strategy to execution.

1. Timeline-Mapping

Prepare a detailed communications timeline that sequences stakeholder outreach based on importance, information needs, and potential leak risks.

Internal audiences typically need information first, but the specific order depends on organizational structure and relationship dynamics. Some stakeholders require early involvement in message development, while others only need final announcements.

2. Leak Strategy Development

Every PE communications plan needs a comprehensive leak strategy addressing three scenarios:

Media inquiries before official announcements
Internal rumors spreading ahead of schedule
Client questions arising from incomplete information.

Prepare templatized responses for each scenario in advance, knowing you may need to accelerate communication timelines on the fly in the event of a leak.

3. Channel-Specific Communications

Different stakeholder groups require different communication formats and approaches. Internal audiences might need video calls for complex discussions and email for broad announcements. Client communication could involve personal calls from relationship partners followed by formal letters. Media relations require press releases, interviews, and background briefings.

Your channel strategy should align with stakeholder preferences while ensuring message consistency across channels.

Communications as Strategic Infrastructure

PE investment transforms more than balance sheets and operational processes—it fundamentally reshapes how stakeholders perceive and interact with your firm. Get communications wrong, and you won’t just have an awkward quarter—you could face a mass exodus of top clients and talent.

The accounting firms that recognize this reality early gain a decisive advantage. They engage communications professionals early in the investment process, develop comprehensive stakeholder strategies before announcements, and execute with precision across multiple channels and audiences.

This approach recognizes that the outcome of a PE investment depends not just on financial engineering or operational improvements, but on maintaining stakeholder confidence throughout the transformation process. With the right communication strategy, you preserve valuable relationships while positioning your firm for accelerated growth.

The PE wave isn’t cresting anytime soon. The real question is, will your communication strategy get you safely to shore—or leave your firm scrambling for a lifeline?

If you’re struggling to know how your firm should speak out about current world events, you’re not alone. I’m a leader in the PR and communication field who advises clients on how to communicate about difficult, tense, uncomfortable situations every day. And even I find it challenging to find the exact words to address a situation as terrible and complex as the one that’s unfolding in Israel and Gaza.

One thing is certain. Professional services firms need to know how to communicate effectively and authentically about issues that matter to their employees, clients, and stakeholders. This is important all the time, not just when heartbreaking headlines and images capture our collective attention.

But here’s the reality that comes into stark relief at times like this. When leadership and communications teams lack diversity of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, experience, and opinion, it’s incredibly difficult to craft a full picture of any given situation. Without a holistic point of view, you’re more likely to alienate your audience than contribute to a smart, informed conversation.

It’s not enough to wait for sensitive issues to arise to begin — or renew — a sustained commitment to DEI at your firm. Here’s what to bear in mind as you work toward strengthening that commitment.

An Authentic Commitment to DEI Is Good for Business

There’s plenty of empirical evidence supporting the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion. For example, McKinsey’s “Diversity Wins: Why Inclusion Matters” report found that:

Companies with high levels of gender diversity on their executive teams were 25 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability than peer companies in 2019, up from 21 percent and 15 percent in previous studies.

Companies with high levels of ethnic diversity on their executive teams outperformed those with low levels by 36 percent in terms of profitability in 2019, slightly up from 33 percent and 35 percent in previous years.

Perhaps even more compelling, McKinsey discovered that DEI “laggards” — those in the bottom quartile of diverse representation — are more likely to underperform median industry profitability measures by 40 percent.

Looking Beyond DEI Metrics

However, as HBR argues, “increasing diversity does not, by itself, increase effectiveness; what matters is how an organization harnesses diversity, and whether it’s willing to reshape its power structure (emphasis mine).

In other words, it’s not enough to merely take action to boost your diversity numbers. Your audience and stakeholders want and need to see an authentic commitment to DEI — one that extends to every aspect of your organization. Case in point: prospective employees (especially members of Gen Z) are looking for evidence that your DEI efforts are genuine. And you’re likely being asked about DEI in RFP processes as well.

To compete for talent and clientele, you need more than a performative “check-the-box” mentality. To make strides, your firm must make a real and concerted effort to listen to and learn from those with diverse heritages, experiences, and outlooks.

In the article referenced above, HBR calls this the “learning-and-effectiveness paradigm.” The authors argue that “cultivating a learning orientation toward diversity—one in which people draw on their experiences as members of particular identity groups to reconceive tasks, products, business processes, and organizational norms—enables companies to increase their effectiveness.”

This transformative approach is the best way to position your firm for the future. And it’s an essential part of equipping your organization to communicate effectively about the issues that matter most to your audience.

Staying Silent Calls Your Firm’s Authority Into Question

When people groups are violently and hatefully targeted, other members of that group need to know their friends, colleagues, and employers stand with them.

Your firm’s silence can speak louder than words. And that silence is particularly noteworthy if your employees, clients, and community stakeholders look to you as a trusted authority and advisor. If your firm abstains from discourse, your lack of participation in active, important, timely conversations might make your audience wonder what you stand for.

That was and is true for Muslim Americans who have faced anti-Islamic rhetoric and prejudice post-9/11.

It was and is true for the Black community in the wake of George Floyd’s murder – and so many others before and after his.

It was and is true for the Asian community when acts of violence against Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Americans increased during the pandemic.

It was and is true for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, who face discrimination and vitriol in schools and in the workplace.

And it was and is true for Jewish people, especially in light of the extreme violence and terror recently unleashed by Hamas.

When you participate skillfully in the conversations that matter, you can reinforce your authority and strengthen your firm’s relationship with your audience.

You’ll greatly increase your chances of getting your messaging right when your leadership and communications teams are made up of people with diverse ethnicities, genders, and points of view. Still, saying something — even if it’s imperfect and requires later clarification (like this internal memo from Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith) — is far better than saying nothing at all.

Acknowledging Your Personal Biases Opens the Door for Deeper Connection

Communicating effectively about difficult issues requires humility and openness. After all, we all come to the table with our own personal biases and ways of looking at the world. That’s not inherently a bad thing. But it’s crucial to acknowledge those biases and intentionally set them aside in order to learn from the people around us and develop a broader point of view.

The situation in Israel and Gaza is a salient example. The terrorist attacks by Hamas and the ensuing images of war impact different individuals in profoundly different ways. Some have religious and cultural ties to Israel, and the violence against their people stirs up reminders of Hitler’s reign of terror leading up to and culminating with the Holocaust. Those with personal connections to Palestine are challenging us to confront the underlying humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip while considering the ways in which Israel’s response to Hamas affects countless civilians.

As leaders, the more information we have about how our employees and clients are experiencing world events, the better positioned we are to build deeper connections with them. We can’t unravel 75+ years of conflict in the region — but we can offer empathy, compassion, and solidarity. And we can provide resources that support our people where they are.

To do that, we first have to look at these issues through multiple lenses and invite deeper discourse on subjects that are hard to talk about.

Don’t Shy Away From DEI — Now’s the Time To Dig Deeper

As a leader at a professional services firm, you have a responsibility to participate thoughtfully in the conversations that matter most. The only way to do that effectively is to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion in a full-hearted way.

To that end, now is the ideal time to recommit to strengthening your firm’s DEI initiatives. Challenge personal biases. Work toward reshaping your firm’s norms, hiring, and power structures. Commit to continuous learning.
And remember: If you need guidance about how your firm should communicate about global and social issues, just reach out. We’d love to help.

Laura Miller